


The Struggle, The Climb

by GreedIsGreen



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Happy Halloween?, Wow, so this got dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 03:10:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12572424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreedIsGreen/pseuds/GreedIsGreen
Summary: The haunting of Sansa Stark.This ones a little different, not gonna lie.





	The Struggle, The Climb

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't edit this much, as it was sort of a last minute thing, but hopefully it's not too terrible as written.

The skies rumbled as she ran — lightning flashing through the sparse windows, the crack of thunder shaking the castle walls. It was after her. Sansa couldn’t see it. Couldn’t hear it. Could only feel as its black tendrils reached out to her, clawing at her skirts. Her heart hammered; lungs on fire as she ran. The muscles of her legs burning, burning.

_Must escape. Must. Keep. Running._

Her chambers. The door. She stretched, her hand only just steady enough to latch on, turn the handle. _Thunk_.

Sansa slumped, throat hoarse, heart trying to break free from her chest. Then, the grating scratch of talons. The piercing howl. She covered her ears, snapped her eyes closed. _No, no, nonononono._

She screamed. “Leave me alone!”

The sound of her own voice could not be heard over the pounding thrum in her veins. The lightning cracked, the thunder shook, the heart beat. The lightning cracked, the thunder shook, the heart beat. The lightning cracked the thunder shook, the heart beat. Over and over, like a song that wouldn’t end from a minstrel from the deepest reaches of hell. 

_”Stop, stop, please, stop!”_ she wailed.

The seconds stretched. The darkness descended. Silence.

 _Release me._ A hiss. It slithered over her skin, sent silken coils to wrap around her spine.

Sansa let her shaking hands fall, let her eyes open. The chamber was cast in pitch. Inky and black and deep. No fire in the hearth. No moonlight to guide her way. Whatever it was — the thing that had been chasing her — it was in the room with her. Yet, it made no attempts to harm her. Taking a fortifying breath, she reached out.

Nothing.

One step. 

Two steps.

A caress - a kiss - featherlight as it fluttered across her knuckles.

Sansa froze. Flashes of another touch, so very similar, came to fore. She tried to shake of the notion. He was dead. She’d watched him die herself — the blood seeping into the dour, grey stone of Winterfell as he choked on her name. Watched as Lord Royce presided over the burning of the body. It’s not him. It’s not. It’s-

 _Release me._ Louder. Insistent. It growled inside her head until she thought her ears might bleed.

“I- I don’t understand!” she screamed. And she screamed. And she screamed, until sweat coated her body, and she shot straight up from beneath the furs that protected her from the seeping cold. 

Embers from the evening fire burned low. Barely aglow. The wind rattled the shutters, and she panted, hand over her heart, and she willed herself to calm.

It was a nightmare. Only the fancy of an overwrought mind suffering too little sleep, and clouded by too many worries. Her skin pebbled in the chill of the room and she realized her nightdress was soaked through with sweat. But it was only a childish dream, and she shook off her unease to rise and change out of the sopping linen.

If Sansa felt the hair prick on the back of her neck as she did so, she did not acknowledge it.

**Three days later…**

The meeting with lords went late into evenfall, and they bickered amongst themselves over the news. Everything that Sansa had worked so hard to achieve was falling apart. The Vale was threatening to leave without a formal alliance, and she had tried her best to make the Northern lords see reason as well, but all were less than understanding of this new turn of events. Jon bent the knee to Daenerys Targaryen, and now it was chaos.

Which meant that Sansa was now alone to pick up the pieces, and make them move. Neither her sister nor brothers were present to aid her.

After the very public tableau that was Littlefinger’s trial, Arya abandoned Winterfell. Saddled her horse to meet up with Jon and the Dragon Queen. And Bran… Well, he was not the most verbose of advisers — if an omnipotent seerer could be called such. He would be no help to her.

The foundations beneath her wobbled. Lord Baelish would have known what to do. In the past, Sansa had leaned on her erstwhile mentor for guidance when such breaks in her courage occurred. For the first time since her nightmare, Sansa thought of her mockingbird. She shivered — the snarling voice still fresh in her mind — but forced the discomfit to leave her. 

Her fingers twisted in worry at her waist until her eyes betrayed her. Dragged her subconsciously to where the bloody token lay hidden beneath fur and wool, wrapped in the finest black silk. Falling to her knees, she rummaged until the tiny parcel was gripped tightly in her hand. Sansa carefully pulled at the fabric until the telltale silver glinted in the firelight. She traced it lightly in her palm, over the ornately etched details; the single eye that seemed to stare accusingly into her very soul.

A single tear fell, piercing it’s gaze, traversing the grooves, mixing with the dried blood that could not be easily wiped away in her haste to conceal it. It was weakness, she knew, to miss him, to long for his company. Digits picked it up delicately, letting the black silk flutter to the ground, swiping the moisture away with her thumb. She closed her eyes, wishing, wishing, wishing…

The fire snuffed out. The sudden waft causing her eyes to pop open, alert. The room was cast in darkness. 

_No. I am only dreaming. I must be._

Yet, her skin pimpled from the cold, and the hair on her neck raised. She was not alone. Footfalls — soft, slow — echoed in the chamber, and her lungs burned with breath held. The urge to run was strong, but her muscles froze her in place. Her heart bursting to break free.

Then, she heard. That voice. That voice that sent cold tremors snaking over her skin, through the very heart of her.

_Release me._

“I- I don’t understand.” 

_Release me_ , it echoed. It sounded in pain this time. Anguished.

The presence she’d felt so clearly in her dream — she could feel it. It was perched behind her. Could feel its stare on her, both familiar and unnerving. It wouldn’t hurt her. Somehow, she knew that its intentions weren’t malicious. Sansa gathered her resolve, rising to her feet. She breathed deeply, letting much needed oxygen fill her lungs, but there was more in the air than the acrid scent of smoke. 

Mint.

Cautiously, she whispered, “Petyr?”

In reply, she felt a gentle tug at her auburn tresses as they were moved behind her shoulder, the faint tickle of cool breath on her neck, a ghosting of stubble against the skin of her jaw. 

“But how?” she asked.

There was no answer. Only those same words.

_Release me._

She was going mad. She had to be. Petyr Baelish was dead. She watched him bleed out with her own two eyes.

_Release me._

A disembodied chant. It replayed over and over and over until it was all she could hear. A drumbeat in her head so loud that she could not ignore it, the pounding, the incessant pounding.

“Please, Petyr. I don’t- I don’t understand!” she sobbed. Tears broke free, marking fiery trails down porcelain cheeks. The pin — his mockingbird — locked tight in her fist until it pierced her flesh, until wet crimson pooled in her palm, until it drippd between her fingers to splatter the stone floor.

He — it — embraced her. Feeling him, the warmth ensconcing her, the weight as he pressed into her back. She was able to breath again. A ragged thing. A comfort. Reason told her to be wary, but how long had it been since she felt so… cherished. Too long.

Heat slithered slowly down her arm, until it rested atop the clenched fist at her breast — the one that held the bloodied trinket. And like a bright light had been shined down on them, she understood. Her hold loosened, fingers wet with her own life’s blood relaxed, opening to his touch. Her eyes mirrored the action, taking in the dark appendage that was coiled around her wrist. She could not make out the shape, the outline of his hand. The smoky, black form seemed to absorb all light, reflecting nothing back. A finger of mist trailed over her pulse, up into her opened palm, creating arcane lines through the red until it reached its quarry.

The pin disappeared like breath on the wind. His caress did not.

The injury was lifted so that he might better see. Sansa fought the urge to look upon him, screwed her eyes tight, afraid to witness what monstrous thing he may have become. Wanting to remember him as he was, and not this strange, ethereal being.

A kiss — so very like her dream she thought perhaps she imagined it — graced the inside of her palm. She quaked. Then, stumbled. Opened her eyes to the fire blazing, the room uncomfortably warm. Her blood uncomfortably warm.

It — he — was gone. Assuming he was there at all. Except, she could still feel where he had been pressed against her back, the skin along her wrist where he’d held it, the lines along her palm. The kiss.

_I’ve lost my mind. I must have._

But the silver mockingbird was gone. She searched, trying to prove — or perhaps disprove — her sanity. It was nowhere to be found, yet the black silk remained. And when she looked to the puncture wound on her hand, it was almost imperceptible — blood cleaned away, only the slightest scar to indicate anything had happened at all.

**Two weeks later…**

At a loss for how else to appease the Lords Declarant, Sansa agreed to marry Robin Arryn. A month later, the tiny tyrant threw himself out the moondoor. Maester Coleman cited a deep melancholy that could not be lifted since his uncle’s death as the cause. Suicide was not unheard of in Westeros, and given his insufferability and pernicious dealings when overseeing the Vale, the incident was not investigated further.

Harry Hardyng stepped forward as heir, and with much chagrin, Sansa agreed once more to a betrothal to cement the alliance. She was even less fond of the Young Falcon than she was of Sweetrobin. He put on a show of affability when in company, but she could see the same entitled arrogance brimming the surface, so similar to that which Joffrey displayed. The thought of marrying him made her blood run cold. So when he was found dead in Wintertown — his throat slit — Sansa breathed a sigh of relief.

Murmurs that the Lady of Winterfell was cursed — that any man linked to her was doomed to die — became a prevalent whisper. She, herself, wondered — not for the first time — if it might be true. That perhaps some dark entity was watching over her, singing sinister songs to her ill-fated suitors. However, it seemed enough to discourage placing her marriageability as bargaining chip on the table — at least for the time being — and for that she was thankful.

**Six months later…**

A raven descended into the rookery. Jubilant news. Terrible news.

The Night King and his army have been defeated. Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen and all her dragons perished in the battle. Arya is missing — presumed dead.

But Cersei Lannister still sits on the Iron Throne, and even now, is marching a band of mercenaries towards the Neck to retake Winterfell and subdue the North.

The Lady of Winterfell called her banners. Every man, woman, and child that can fight, must fight. The Northern forces are depleted, but the Vale is eager to wet their swords with Southron blood. Jon’s wildlings less so. Tyrion Lannister — beaten, heartsick with loss — pledged the last of the Targaryen forces to the North’s cause. 

The Mad Queen’s reign must end.

And so they march south to Moat Cailin — a misfit army. Sansa recalls so clearly riding through its gates those many years ago, that she can almost feel Petyr at her side.

She rubs the raised flesh on her palm, and wonders if he would be proud.

**Four months later…**

They have King’s Landing under siege when word reaches their encampment. The Queen is dead. The Kingslayer — now Queenslayer — announces it to them himself as he hauls his bloody and broken body into the general’s tent, collapsing in Brienne’s arms. He reveals a secret entrance into the city, and that Euron Greyjoy holds the Iron Throne — crowning himself King.

Ser Jaime dies shortly after, succumbing to his wounds as Brienne strokes his golden locks. It was the first and only time Sansa had ever seen the woman cry.

The scar on her palm burns.

**Five hours later…**

The Ironborn break as soon the city is breached; chain and leather no match against plate and steel. Yet, the clang of swords, the cries of dying men still fill the streets as Sansa rides through the King’s Gate. The battle is won, but she’s not certain that she’s ready for what comes next.

On the edges of her periphery, she swears she sees the fluttering of a black cloak, but when she turns… nothing.

Lord Tyrion, Lord Royce, and Lord Glover trailed behind her as they strode into the Red Keep. They lost many in the war pushing south before Sansa wizened to an old bit of advice Petyr had given her. _When you know what a man wants, you know how to move him._ Cersei’s Golden Company wanted gold when they first came to Westeros, but with winter bearing down, they needed food. And her clever mockingbird had set aside bushels and bushels of it in the Vale. The mercenaries worked for her now. The few that were left behind to defend the castle recognized their comrades in arms as it was overtaken, and quickly turned on their Ironborn masters. 

The throne room doors are flung open, and Sansa almost faints.

Euron Greyjoy sits on the Iron Throne, only not. He is impaled on it — a rusted sword shooting out the top of his head, his eyes clouded and blank. The blood still oozes from him, pooling through the seats crevices to collect in the floor. It takes her a moment to realize he is not alone.

Petyr, Lord Baelish, Littlefinger — so many names and he is all of them and none in this moment — steps out from behind the gruesome carnage. That long cloak, black and billowing; his eyes beckoning her forward.

The looks on her advisors’ faces are impassive. They see nothing save a dead man bleeding out. Sansa blinks once. Twice. He is still there, his hand extended out to her, expectant.

Time freezes even as she moves forward. The snow outside halted in its descent. Her entourage unmoving, unbreathing. The clang of swords, the grunts of the fight still happening around them silent. Magic.

The sound of her boots click and echo; her hand reaching to touch the specter that haunted her — haunts her. When their fingers entwine, there is a darkness in his eyes, but Sansa is not frightened.

Eyes close, lips meet. She does not mind the bite of the dagger at her throat. She welcomes it.

**Author's Note:**

> Does she die? Does demonic Petyr have a dagger kink? Is it a metaphorical dagger sacrificing the life she wants in order to rule instead? 
> 
> I'll never tell. :)


End file.
